April 18, 2024
Accused attacker's family breaks silence as Opposition calls for security shake-up
The Federal Opposition is calling on the Government to restore the access of two of the nation's leading intelligence bosses to its top security body after a terror attack at a church in Sydney's west.
National security experts have warned of potential copycat attacks after Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was stabbed multiple times during a live-streamed sermon at the Assyrian orthodox Christ the Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley on Monday night.
The attack led to riots outside the church and on Wednesday night NSW Police arrested a 19-year-old man in relation to that after raiding a house in Doonside. Police said more arrest warrants were being prepared after 58 officers were injured and more than 50 police vehicles damaged when hundreds of people clashed with officers.
On Wednesday, the family of a 16-year-old arrested over the stabbing said through a spokesperson that their son suffered from outbursts and anger management issues.
Dr Jamal Rifi, a prominent figure in Sydney's Muslim community, said the teen's family were distraught and had moved out of their home due to intense media interest He said the parents had visited their son in hospital, where he is receiving treatment after severing his finger allegedly during the attack.
"They found him remorseful and he just kept telling his mother, 'I am sorry, I am sorry'," he said.
Dr Rifi said the family had taken the teenager to multiple psychiatrists over his anger issues, but said they hadn't been given a formal diagnosis.
"He had outbursts . . . he easily had outbursts being angry and sometimes for no good reason," he said.
NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley said counterterrorism investigators were yet to interview the teenager.
Shadow home affairs minister James Paterson said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese needed to admit he was wrong for removing the bosses of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service from Cabinet's national security committee.
"It was already obvious before these tragic events that the director generals of ASIO and ASIS should never have been removed from the national security committee," he said.
"But the case to return them now is glaringly obvious." It is understood that under the Coalition government, ASIO chief Mike Burgess and ASIS director-general Kerri Hartland attended every national security committee meeting whereas now they are only invited to some briefings.
A government spokesperson said: "We don't comment on matters relating to national security." In February, Mr Burgess said that Sunni Islamic violent extremism posed the "greatest religiously motivated threat in Australia". And on Wednesday, former senior defence official Michael Shoebridge told The Nightly the warning that Islamic terrorism was the biggest national security threat had been proved correct.
"You can see there's growing anger and division in Australian society and it's being licensed by walking past the pretty violent words we hear in the Muslim community in Australia that seem to think their words have no consequence, but their words can drive young Australians to action as we have just allegedly seen," said Mr Shoebridge, the founder of Strategic Analysis Australia.
John Coyne, head of Strategic Policing and Law Enforcement at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said ASIO and the intelligence community had for years held concerns about the online radicalisation of young people.
"Young people are being radicalised through a range of ideologies," Dr Coyne said.
"I think also the October 7 attacks (in Israel) created fissures in some of our social cohesion and social cohesion in general in Australia. Be it white supremacists, incels or violent misogynists."
